The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7339 p268
5 March 2005

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· Problem-based learning
· Support staff (2)
· Co-proxamol
· Mental health
· New contract
· Repeat dispensing
· Overseas pharmacists (2)
· Registration
· Recruitment
· The profession

Letters to the Editor

Problem-based learning

Another name for self-directed learning

From Dr C. Staiger, MRPharmS

I would like to comment on your article (PDF 75K) “Problem-based learning in the fourth year of the MPharm at Manchester” (PJ, 29 January, p117). Indeed, modern methods of education are needed for the health care professions to face present and future challenges. PBL is one of them and I congratulate the University of Manchester for using it successfully during the undergraduate course.

However, I strongly doubt that PBL is new and that it was “first developed … in Canada in the mid-1960s”. In fact, PBL is as old as mankind. Even the invention of the wheel was done by problem-based learning.

The change of paradigm using PBL in undergraduate courses in pharmacy is related to teaching rather than to learning. PBL forces professors to leave the traditional role as a lecturer delivering a monologue and become a guide for discussion for students’ learning process. Therefore, would it not be better to call the method “case-based learning” or “self-directed learning” instead of PBL?

Christiane Staiger
Neu-Isenburg, Germany

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